January 8th, 2004 issue #0301

While Roanoke will soon gain a railroad dream in the form of the new O. Winston Link Museum, Charlottesville rail buffs recently experienced a sort of nightmare. In May, train-lovin' families lost one of the best afternoon rail activities Charlottesville had to offer: the round-trip to Staunton.
"It may change," says Charlottesville station master Bob Aycock of the train schedule, "but I don't have any information that it will."
Aycock says the roundtrip to Staunton was "just a coincidental thing that worked out well for us."

Organizing curator: Tom Garver, an art historian and former Link agent who assisted Link on three photo/sound junkets in the late 1950s
Museum manager: John M. "Jay" Saunders Jr.
Location: Former N&W passenger station next to famed Hotel Roanoke
Size: 15,000 in a 27,000-sq.-ft. building
Built: 1905
Re-built: 1947 by renowned industrial designer Raymond Loewy in the art moderne style
Heyday: 1950s when passengers could board five main rail lines in all directions

O. Winston Link; the "O" stands for Ogle
Born: December 16, 1914, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: January 30, 2001, outside a train station (really!) in Katonah, New York. Driving to a doctor's office, he pulled over and suffered a heart attack.
Trained: As a civil engineer
Hint o' future: Served as photo editor of both the student newspaper and the yearbook at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn
Career: Public relations; commercial photography

The final years of the world's foremost railroad photographer were not all peaceful. O. Winston Link, the man who chronicled rural life and steam trains, spent nearly a year in the early 1990s as a prisoner, a slave, or both, according to some of the late photographer's associates.
"I'm surprised no one's written a screenplay yet," says New York gallery owner Robert Mann. "It's an amazing story."

The Star City is about to get a jewel.
On January 10, Roanoke officials will join railroad buffs in cutting the opening ribbon for a new museum showcasing the stunning photographic achievements of the late O. Winston Link.

A railroad helped turn a little town called Big Lick into a major rail city called Roanoke. But one thing is still missing: passengers.
After the Norfolk & Western Railway was born from the merger of two major railroads in the 1880s, Roanoke became not just the headquarters for N&W, but also the nexus of a burgeoning passenger system whose famed trains included the Cavalier, the Pocahontas, and the Powhatan Arrow.